There was a similar item in a bicycling magazine a few years ago...maybe it was Bicycling Magazine. The writer mountain biked up to a bare hilltop below power lines, and when he stopped and stood over the top tube, he got zapped in the scrotum.
High power lines are surrounded by a magnetic field which in turn can induce an electric current in nearbye metal objects so I imagine it was some sort of secondary effect like that, not power actually somehow leaking out of the grid. Still, it sounds hazardous enough!

Especially with the gas station there!